Search and Rescue
by thegoatlady
Summary: Angelica doesn't want a father, and Sherlock doesn't want a daughter. They are solitary creatures, and don't need anything but their own minds to feel content. What happens when teenage Angelica travels all the way to London for answers? Will these two find themselves as polar opposites, or do they have too much in common for their own good?
1. Prologue

**A/N: It had to come along sometime; my first Sherlock fanfic. It is very late at night, so for now I am just going to say that this is the story of Sherlock's (unbeknownst to him) teenage daughter, and their journey to understand each other. Happy reading!**

 **/**

I dodged the blind punch, ducking low. In a quick movement, I swept my leg out to knock her thick calves from underneath her. I'd had enough of this—clumsy fighting. The angry giant of a girl was of no use to me. All of her movements were slow and heavy, as if addled by some drug, though the saddest part was that I knew she was completely sober. Just unskilled and obtusely unobservant.

She tumbled ungracefully to the ground, and the crowd of students that had gathered around our spectacle gasped. Some of them cheered for me. I glanced up briefly to grin at those individuals before directing my attention back towards the incapacitated Sadie.

 _Sadie_ , I thought. Her parents must have been wishing for a much prettier child. To see her now, with her close cropped hair, large frame and sour expression, I might have thought her name was something like _Helga_ , or _Bone Crusher Xtreme III._

Sadie clenched her meaty fists and glared up at me, but made no further attempt at redemption. I was sure by the deep wrinkles present on her forehead that she wanted nothing more than to force feed me my own insides but that she knew she had been beaten by a wiry, four-eyed _freak_ —as was the center of my reputation. Idiots.

"Watch your back, Ryder." Helga— _Sadie_ —practically sniveled, wiping a wrist across the stream of blood making a scarlet line from her nose to her blunted, pockmarked chin. "I'll have my girls on the look-out for you." I knew from mild research that Sadie had no loyal gang members to call on, and that I had nothing to fret over. Still, I smiled and leaned down to stare into her dull, muddy eyes.

"Too cowardly to face me again, I see? A shame. I really have enjoyed our time together."

Her face contorted in rage, and she made to stand. A few straying crowd members hastily clustered back into groups and away from Sadie's wrath. But I merely held up a chastising finger.

"Ah, ah, let's not get excited. Here's some advice, Sadie: this is high school." I gestured around us to the red and blue painted cement walls, attempting to ignore the fetid odor of sweat and hormones which invaded my senses all over again if I turned my head too quickly. "Try not to take yourself so seriously, maybe learn a few things here and there. You may get more use out of an education than out of being a bully."

Having let my facial muscles slip, I grinned widely for her benefit, knowing full well it may have looked slightly frightening on the sharp angles of my insincere face. Just then, the release bell rang out across the building. Thank God. I'd been wanting to get back home as soon as I'd walked out the door that morning. Obviously, it was unwise for me to be around people today, more so than most other days. Without another word, I spun on my heel and started towards the exit, hoping to beat the oncoming mob of students rushing out of their classrooms. But before I got very far, I paused and glanced back over my shoulder with an involuntary twitch of my lip. "Or you could at least improve your combat skills. That was far too easy."

I didn't listen for her reply, and instead hiked my bag further onto my shoulder and continued on down the hallways until I'd made my way out into the waning late day sunlight.

 **/**

"Angelica Sage Ryder!" I was lying on my bed reading when I heard my mother's screech from somewhere in the front of the house. The front door slammed in her wake, sending bothersome vibrations along the walls. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table to find that it was well after five o'clock, and that, as always, I had lost track of time. With a shrug, I went back to scanning the words on the page. I knew that if I didn't go to her, she would surely come to me. Only a moment later, my mom burst into my room, all blue scrubs and fraying blonde hair. I glanced up briefly from my book, noted the strain around her eyes and the greasy shine to her fingers. I glanced down at the stain on her neckline and sniffed at the air.

"Didn't get me anything?" I hummed, once again directing my attention back towards the book held in my hands. I hoped she would leave soon so I could get back to it.

"What?" My mom mumbled, rubbing a palm across her forehead.

"You got fast food on the way home. There isn't much food in the house. Did you get me something to eat?"

There was a pause, as there always was.

"Oh, yes. Yes, I left a burger and fries on the counter for you. But back to my point—why did your principal call me today to tell me you'd broken some girl's nose?"

A flood of delight went through me. Not only had I humiliated her, but I'd broken her nose, too! I closed my book, holding the spot with my finger. "Because I suppose that's what I did, and he felt the need to inform you."

"Angelica," she sighed, seating herself on the edge of my bed. "You're seventeen now. Soon you'll be in college, and in college you can't do these kinds of things without more severe punishment." Her tone was pleading and cajoling, but it only inspired in me a faint tug of annoyance. I knew the attitudes of oppressed college officials, but I also knew very well my own intolerance for useless people; and the latter was stronger.

"Would it help to say that she started it? My end was merely self-defense."

My mom's serious expression cracked into an exasperated smile, and I was only slightly startled when she brushed a strand of hair back behind my ear. My mom was a touch-y feel-y person. I was not. But I'd gotten used to it over the years. "I don't doubt it," she whispered. She stared at me for a painful moment. "You're just like him."

My heart kicked in my chest. "Like who?"

She contemplated for a moment, before whispering so low I might not have otherwise heard, "Your father."

My blood stuttered in my veins. This was an opportunity which didn't come around often. In my seventeen years, I had not heard more than ten words uttered on the subject of my father. I knew he had been a one-night stand in college, and that I was supposedly better off without him.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I kept my voice low, as if talking too loudly would shatter the tentative conversation.

"I don't know."

"Mom," I grabbed her wrist, felt that her pulse was elevated. "Who is he?"

My tone was hard, non-negotiable. I had wanted to know who my father was for as long as I could remember. When I had been small, I'd felt some sort of sense of abandonment, but over the years that feeling had morphed into more of a curiosity. Meeting my father was an item on a checklist. My mind reveled in knowledge and information, so when I realized I was uninformed on something as basic as my own genetic background it had sent me into a mental frenzy of questions and frustration.

Her amber eyes softened considerably on me, as if she were sorry. Which was ridiculous, because all she had to do was give me a name and a general location. The rest I could find out on the internet in five minutes.

"I can tell you," she said, her voice wavering only the smallest bit. "That he is the most intelligent man I have ever met, and the most dangerous. And I can tell you that I don't want you anywhere near him."

Frankly, I didn't have the conscience to care what she wanted for me. This wasn't her choice. But she held the answer I needed. I was more angrily urgent than any sort of sad, but knowing that it was the quickest way to get something out of this conversation, I pretended to shrink in on myself. I curled both of my arms around myself, pinching myself right underneath the sensitive skin of my armpit to induce a light sheen of tears. I sniffled and let my head hang, though not before letting her catch a glimpse at my face. Subconsciously, she would see the taut skin on the sides of my mouth and the way my eyebrows had wrinkled and lowered, and deduce feelings of extreme sadness and the helpless confusion of a child.

I was instantly pulled into her arms, her hands pressing me up against her chest. "Oh, sweetheart, don't cry," she soothed. "I just want to protect you."

I refused the urge to roll my eyes as I pulled back, drawing my knees up to my chest and hugging them. "Can you please…" I sobbed in an impressively believable fashion. "Can you just tell me about the night you two met, at least? No names, no addresses, I swear. I just want—I just want…"

I heard a soft sound of pity from her and thought, _Jackpot_.

"Yes, of course." She murmured, petting at the top of my head. "Though I have to be honest with you; your father and I never had any sort of romance. We barely knew each other, in fact." I'd already assumed that, so I nodded and waited for her to continue.

She took a breath. "There isn't much to tell, honestly. I had a friend when I was twenty or so who I visited as often as I could. She lived in London; went to King's College, actually. I was so proud of her. One weekend while I was visiting her, there was a campus wide celebration— it was the ending of finals week. She and I were as drunk as skunks, and she pointed a man out to me. Tall and dark-haired with these amazing ice blue eyes." Here, she reached out again to touch my cheek, as if to remind me that those amazing eyes were now mine as well. I tried not to become enraptured in her story, mentally recalling what I knew.

 _Went to King's College in London. Dark hair, blue eyes, considerably tall. Intelligent._

"She told me his name and said that he was the campus mystery. Nobody knew his story, only that he had almost supernatural abilities when it came to picking strangers apart and finding out the way they ticked. She said he was always so composed, except that that night he wasn't. He was being shoved around by a group of friends in the middle of a crowd. She said that it was my chance. And so, I took it. There really isn't much else to tell. When I woke the next morning he wasn't there, and I never saw or heard of him ever again." With her last words she chewed on her bottom lip once before releasing it, which meant there was a lie wrapped somewhere in her last statement. Had she heard from him? Had he tried to be in contact with me?

I imagined writing everything out in bullet points and tacking the paper somewhere along the inner walls of my skull, trying to shoo my mother out of my room as quickly as possible without raising suspicion. As soon as she walked out, I locked my door before darting to my desk for my heavy monstrosity of a laptop. It took one Google search containing the words I'd memorized before to come up with the results I knew in my gut were true.

I hadn't expected for it to be so easy. Hadn't expected to find him within the first five minutes of searching. But I had. And I'd vaguely heard the name before, his legend having spread all the way into America like a vibrant blood stain across white sheets.

Sherlock Holmes, the famous London detective, was my father.

 **A/N: I mean, tell me what you think so far.**


	2. The Reveal

**A/N: Ah, hey! Super short chapter, but packed full of lots of angst-y thinking. I just wanted to get more of this story out there, so I'll be back soon with more. Enjoy!**

 **/**

The next morning was tentative on my mother's side, and cold on mine. I prided myself on being unable to be surprised—but this. This was challenging.

Sherlock Holmes; famous detective, rumored sociopath/psychopath, and undoubtedly my father. I'd spent the whole night researching—reading and re-reading every word of information available on Sherlock Holmes and his partner in crime John Watson. I'd read nearly every entry on Dr. Watson's blog, found a few typos, and resisted the urge to snottily point them out in an email. I'd found a few other names that were possibly other relatives, two of which were in their fifties and lived in Oklahoma; the other name, Mycroft Holmes, was shrouded in governmental implications and mystery.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I testily flicked back one of my flashcards and sipped at my scalding coffee. I heard light footsteps walk down the hallway and stop behind my chair. A kiss was placed on the top of my head as my mother peered over my shoulder. "What's that?" she asked of the flashcards.

"The Korean alphabet."

She laughed bemusedly. "I thought you would have learned that one ages ago."

"Oh, yeah, I'm just refreshing. Since I don't use it daily I need to keep it fresh in my mind or I'm at risk to forget it."

"I was being sarcastic, dear."

"Oh."

Still chuckling to herself, she moved forward to pull the eggs from the fridge. "You want some breakfast?" she asked, though she knew what my answer always was.

"No."

"Angelica, you never eat. You know it isn't good for you."

Of course I knew the effects it would have on my sugar levels, but I didn't particularly care. Eating in the mornings upset my stomach.

"Fine," I rolled my eyes pointedly. "Toast sounds delicious."

Scoffing, my mother continued on in her ministrations. I went back to my flashcards, but with my thoughts centered so heavily on Sherlock Holmes, I couldn't focus. After nervously tapping my nails on the table for what seemed like minutes rather than seconds, I slammed the stack down and stood. I hurried into the bathroom and pushed my apprehension down until the only trace of it was left staining my tongue with a metal taste akin to the feeling of a penny sitting stubbornly against the inside of my mouth. I glanced into the mirror, staring in twisted wonder at my reflection. I looked so much like him. Which, of course, was to be expected due to the fact that I shared half of his DNA. My unruly black hair curled in the same peculiar way I'd seen his do in the pictures I'd found, and though none of the pictures had quite captured his eyes, I imagined they were the same changeable blue-green-grey that mine were. I'd gotten his dangerously sharp cheekbones as well, I realized, and suddenly I felt a weight lift from my psyche. I'd been heckled and bullied my entire life for my severe features and odd personality, but the fact that someone existed that was so much like me made me feel significantly less alone, even if he most likely had no idea of my existence. I gave my reflection a shaky smile and felt a little less ridiculous.

A tentative knock on the door startled me, and though I knew there was no one else in the house, I automatically registered my mother's pattern, anyway: two knuckles against the center of the door, three stunted knocks. "Angelica? Are you alright?" I thought that was a bit of a rude question to ask someone that had just hurried into the bathroom as if their ass were on fire, but I repressed a retort. My mother was only concerned.

I swung the door open and moved past my mother, who gave a small gasp. So skittish, that one. I grabbed my bag off the back of the kitchen chair and took a granola bar from the cupboard. "What about toast?" she yelled exasperatedly as I started towards the front door.

"No time," I waved my granola bar at her, hoping that would satisfy her. "I'll eat later." I said, and in a rare move pecked her on the cheek before ducking out the door and hustling down the street before she had time to chase after me with that toast. Just as I was pulling out my phone, a car pulled up beside me, and I immediately recognized its stuttering motor and the familiar sound of the so-called "music" blasting through broken speakers.

Without hesitation, I flung open the passenger door and watched, unimpressed, as Dave cleared the cluttered seat for me. "You're late." I criticized as I situated my bag around my ankles.

He scoffed and gave me a derisive glance. "By what? A minute?"

"And thirty seconds."

He made a low humming noise that I'd come to interpret as satisfaction concealed thinly by faux-annoyance. "Well, I'm sorry, Your Highness, but it isn't like you're paying me gas money every morning, either."

I watched silently as he finished the last of his cigarette and flicked it out of the grasp of his black-painted fingernails before rolling his half open window back up. I took a look at his attire. Today, it was as over the top as usual—Dave wore his dark hair messy and untouched, his brown eyes smudged with eyeliner. He wore a simple pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt, though the choker straining against his neck certainly made more of a statement. But oh—there was a pale line against his left wrist.

"Having more trouble with your cheerleader girlfriend, I see?"

"Not my girlfriend anymore." He confirmed, glancing over at me. One of the things I liked about Dave was that he had never suggested there was anything wrong with me, and he was never unnerved by my small deductions. He was always curious—open and receptive to new information. "How'd you know?"

I gave him a small, apologetic sort of smile. "It was pretty obvious. Your left wrist? No promise bracelet; a tan line indicating that you've only recently removed it. And you were smoking before nine in the morning, even though you don't typically have addictive tendencies. You were upset, anxious. Probably not looking forward to seeing her in first period."

He nodded grimly, and I didn't ask anything else. It was his business, but I knew he'd never been seriously infatuated with the girl anyway. What was her name? Ashley, Amber…Asshole? It didn't matter. I discarded the thought with a mental flick of my wrist.

The car halted at a stop sign on protesting brakes, and Dave turned slightly in his seat to analyze me in return. A slowly building confidence grew in his eyes. "There's something up with you too, isn't there? Bags under your eyes, tightness around your mouth, and…is that the same shirt from yesterday? I guess you were busy with whatever last night and didn't have time to do laundry. So, what happened?"

Good, he was getting better. I had been teaching him how to observe on the regular, what signs to look for and the like, and apparently he'd been studying. Deciding that Dave was trustworthy and that there was really no point trying to lie, I just came out with it.

"I found out who my father is last night."

The car had been starting to creep forward, but it halted once again, jarring me forward suddenly. I didn't typically bother with seatbelts. "Whoa, seriously?! Your mom finally told you?"

"No," I scoffed. "She didn't have to. I took what I knew and found out on my own."

I didn't have to explain myself further. Dave eased off the brakes properly this time, and we continued on in silence for a few beats.

"So, who is he, then? Is he totally embarrassing, like a farmer from Wisconsin whose only vocabulary consists of words like 'hankering', and 'get-her-done'?"

"You may have heard of him, actually. His name is Sherlock Holmes."

Once again, this time smack in the middle of the street, Dave slammed on the brakes with a force that made my emerging headache pound harder against my skull. "Would you refrain from doing that?!" I howled angrily, clutching at the emergency handle.

"Sherlock Holmes?!" Dave shrieked back at me, as if he hadn't even recognized my complaint. "Sherlock _fucking_ Holmes is your father? Are you shitting me, Angelica? How?"

"Well, I suppose he and my mother—"

"No, shut up. I know _that_. The man is one of the most brilliant minds in the world. How can you be sure he's your father?"

"Trust me, it all adds up. The date I was born to the date he and my mom had sexual relations. His personality, my personality. His looks, my looks."

He gave me a doubtful look. "Angelica, come on. You can't—"

"I can't what?"

He glanced over, saw my calculating glare, and seemed to reevaluate his next words. "I mean—ugh. Do you really have enough evidence to go on with this?"

I pulled my phone from my pocket and found one of the pictures I'd saved onto my camera roll last night. With an impatient sigh, I shoved the phone into one of Dave's hands. He squinted down at the image, flicking his eyes between it, me, and the road. His eyes widened, dark eyebrows shooting upwards. "Shit," he breathed.

"Yeah."

"So, he's your father."

"Yes."

"What are you going to do about it?"

I scoffed, pushing my hair stressfully back. "What can I do? Go to England, show up at his door and ask to move in?"

There was a long pause, and I turned to Dave in surprise. He looked sheepishly back at me, and it slowly morphed into a mischievous grin. "You're not actually saying that I should, are you?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me, as if to say, _why not_?

"Oh, and I suppose you think I have the funds to do so? Or that my mother wouldn't have my ass for taking off to another country?"

Dave snorted. "Like you've ever let parental authority stop you from doing anything. And I've got the funds. I had those two jobs last summer. I was saving up to buy a new car, but what the hell. Meeting a famous detective/my best friend's father comes in at a close second."

My laugh sounded more like a brittle cough, even to my own ears. "No," I said, focusing on the green blur of grass outside of my window. I felt blank. I could feel the steel walls around my brain closing in, shutting me and everyone else out.

"Yeah," Dave did not seem to buy anything I was saying. "Whatever."

And for the rest of the ride, we were left to stew in uncomfortable silence.

 **/**

 **Reviews make everything go faster.**


	3. Decisions

**A/N: At this time, I'm just trying to get comfortable with Angelica and her quirks; the friendship between she and Dave, etc. We should have a meeting with Sherlock next chapter. Please enjoy, and don't forget to leave me a comment at the end.**

My revelation came later that day, in the form of my usual vexations: other people.

The school day had just finished, and I had secluded myself to the back side of the building, leaning up against the old, damp brick wall, treasuring the blessed silence. The skies had faded from blue to tumultuous gray, foreshadowing the oncoming rain which permeated the air with its pungent misty scent. I kicked idly at the stiff and browning grass beneath my boots, and with a sigh pulled from a slim pocket in my wallet the object of my unrelenting thoughts.

I held the cigarette in front of my eyes for less than five seconds before shrugging and lighting it anyway. I cherished the first breath in, closing my eyes against the burn of smoke as it filtered back out through my mouth. I didn't smoke often, but when I was feeling things too strongly, it was always something that helped calm me. My mother had never had the deductive reasoning to be able to notice my unsavory habit, but I thought that if she did know, she might find cigarettes a welcome alternative to other drugs. Those I did my best to stay away from.

My thoughts still were centered around Sherlock Holmes; what was he like? How did he act? Was I similar to him? Would he, if given the chance, understand my mind the way no one I'd ever known had been able to? Did he experience the same overwhelming state that I did, getting lost in the dark, manic corners of consciousness which sometimes took hold of the spirit and refused to let go?

It was about halfway through my cigarette when something nudged at my senses. I wasn't too far immersed in my thoughts not to notice the indiscreet rasp of shoes on pavement. A toughened leather from the sound of it, with a heavy heel. I already knew it wasn't the sound of a teacher's shoes, but even if it had been, I don't think I would have hurriedly stubbed out my cigarette. This was my reprieve, and someone was going to interrupt it.

"Hey, look," a voice called tauntingly. I knew that voice. "It's the weirdo!"

"Dear God," I muttered, exhaling a breath of gray smoke. What a shit insult that was. About as imaginative as a dull kindergartener.

I turned to glance at the two—no, three people—as they rounded the corner. One of them, unsurprisingly, was Sadie. The other two I didn't know, but could see from their glances at each other and their considerable girth that Sadie had bribed them into this little display.

"Hello, ladies," I drawled in what I hoped was a very unpleasant tone. "Can I help you with something?"

I quickly took a cursory glance at their body language as they swaggered towards me—the one on the left side of Sadie had a cleft chin and curled her right foot slightly inward as she walked. An old injury, probably an uneven break that had never quite healed right. The other girl—if you could call such a thing a girl—was massive, even more so than Sadie, and walked with an overconfident sort of stomp, and had the most awful botched haircut I'd ever seen. I catalogued their weaknesses and waited for them to continue this confrontation. I was too weary to bother talking further.

"That all you have to say?" Cleft Chin simpered. "I thought you were good at running your mouth, freak."

I turned, studiously ignoring them, until there was a shove on my shoulder. I immediately felt anger rise like a brutal tide against my skin. I pushed it down, knowing that a reaction from me would only spur them on. Instead, I took another long drag on my cigarette, staring directly past her cronies and into Sadie's swollen black eye. The skin around it had turned varying shades of yellow and purple, and I could tell she hadn't cleaned the wound well enough—signs of infection were already showing. I couldn't tell through all the inflammation, but I thought she was glaring at me something fierce.

As we were busy staring at each other, the butch one snatched my cigarette from my fingers. "These things'll kill you," she said in her practiced, unimpressive scary voice. "If we don't first."

Deciding that this stupidity wasn't worth it, I rolled my eyes and turned away from them. I had better things to worry about. I wondered if Dave was still upset after our conversation in the car that morning, and if he would be waiting for me at the front of the school or if had left me to find another ride home. Maybe I should have tried to explain myself a little more; he and my mom were always chastising me for leaving everybody else 'out of the loop' when it came to my thoughts.

There was a sound behind me and before I had time to react, I felt a searing, localized pain on the outside of my arm. My immediate reaction was to swing around with a fist raised, but the bitch with the cleft chin was somehow quicker and her elbow cut into my cheek. I couldn't help an agonized yell as I went down, a boot having kicked into the backs of my knees. I caught a glimpse of the angry, cigarette-sized welt forming on my arm and ground my teeth against the pain.

A plan quickly formulated in my mind: bring Cleft Chin down with a sharp kick to her old injury, then use your smaller size against the giant one and gain momentum to flip her down onto her back. Murder Sadie when the other two were down and out.

Unfortunately, before I could get to my feet a swinging kick was delivered directly to my neck, choking me and possibly displacing some part of my collarbone. After that, every movement was a blur, every thought to get up and fight back aborted by their brutish strength. They dogpiled me with punches and slaps and kicks, resulting in what felt like nearly 700 pounds of weight beating me to a mangled pulp.

"Not much to say now, huh freak?" Sadie snarled, delivering several bruising blows to my abdomen. The other two held my arms and legs down, since I refused to give up and cower in on myself. I made a frenzied mental note to start weight training as soon as possible; I wouldn't let muscle mass overpower my skill again.

"I don't even get why you talk at all; everyone wants you gone. Not even the teachers like your weird ass."

With that sentence, she got down on her knees, drew her arm back, and one of her meaty fists knocked into my jaw with the force of a freight train. I could feel my skin opening up below her knuckles, and groaned. Goddamn, it would be a long, long healing process.

"I bet your parents regret ever having you. Do you even have parents, or were you made in a lab?" Her tone was scathing, and her lackeys gave nasally laughs to show their loyalty.

A weak chuckle escaped my lips, my lungs aching with the effort. "Notice how…" a rattling cough. Definitely a sprained collarbone. Not broken. "You need assistance to leave me beat, while I took you down on my own."

I spat a glob of blood-laced saliva onto the toe of her shoe, which inspired in her a feral growl of rage. With a nod to the beast holding my arms down, she lifted her leg high in the air and brought the heel of her boot ruthlessly down on my fingers. This time, I screamed in anguish as I heard the horrifying crunch and pop of my bones. A tight set to her mouth, Sadie turned her back and stalked away.

I felt the pressure lift from my arms and legs, the sound of footsteps too close to my face as the other two followed her. As soon as my bleary vision made out that they had rounded the corner, I rolled onto my side, clutching my stomach. It was over. I patted down my pockets and pulled my phone out, hitting number two on my speed dial.

"Come to your senses yet?" Dave's jesting tone teased from the other side of the line. I whimpered as I tried to sit up and a sharp pain lanced through my entire body, regaling me back to the pavement.

His tone became alarmed. " _Angel?_ Angelica, what's wrong?"

He was using the nickname that I always told him I hated, but at the moment all I could utter was the most pathetic sound I'd ever made, and a whispered, "Help."

"Where are you? I'm coming right now." I could vaguely make out the sound of his car's old engine roaring with strain. I was so weary, too much so to talk. I tried to make a sound of assent.

"Stay on the phone with me, okay? Where are you?" He repeated.

I was trying to answer, but I could only make slurred noises of discomfort. I blearily recognized the symptoms of a concussion, but before I could attempt to tell Dave that, or even to tell him where I was, darkness enclosed on my vision, and I went unconscious.

When I woke, my surroundings were at first unfamiliar. I was on a couch—an uncomfortable one at that—and the room was dim. When I looked out of the nearby window, I saw that it had turned to dusk. I had been unconscious for around five hours, then. I sat up with a groan, every part of my body stiff. I knew where I was now; I was in Dave's living room. I turned on the lamp beside me, and saw that a small pile of Advil and a bottle of water had been left on the coffee table. I hastily swallowed a few pills, drinking half of the water before setting it down.

I glanced at the hand that had been stomped on and grimaced. It was wrapped in a menagerie of bandages and gauze. It was my left hand, the hand I used to finger the strings of my violin and move rapidly across the keys of the piano. Now it would be months before I could effectively play either again. I lifted myself from the sofa precariously, finding it impossible to do so without my entire body protesting. I hobbled my way over to the long mirror which occupied the western wall of Dave's living room, flicking on a lamp as I passed.

I observed my injuries in the mirror, noticing that though they were severe, they had obviously been tended to already. I slowly lifted a hand, prodding at the coat of ointment which covered the cut along my left cheekbone. Well, this certainly wasn't as bad as it could have been. It still put me off a great amount, though. There were quiet footsteps off to my left, and without looking at him, I said, "Thank you. This would have left a horrible scar."

Dave smiled grimly at me, fidgeting for a moment before plopping down into an armchair. "What the hell happened back there, Angel?" His tone was gentle, careful; each word individually wrapped in warmth. I despised it.

"Don't call me that." I sighed with no real conviction. I started rubbing idle circles into my lower back. I already knew it would be sore for many days to come. "Sadie and her brutes attacked me. I was put in a compromised position. I lost."

I said the last bit with painfully gritted teeth. Feeling the protestation of my injured jaw, I eased the pressure. Some small part of my brain thought Dave would criticize me for losing in a fight against such idiots, but he just continued to look concerned. It was only myself, I thought bitterly, that was constantly in disapproval of my own actions. We breathed in stagnant silence for a few moments. Nodding to myself, I took a deep breath. "You said you had the funds?"

Dave startled, blinking owlishly at me. "Sorry, what?" I pushed down the urge to snap my fingers and tell him to stop being so slow. Now I would have to explain.

I sighed heavily with annoyance. "The funds. To get to London. Meet my father. Any of this ringing a bell?"

"You said you didn't want to do that," Dave said, and this time he had a smug expression on his face. Lovely. He was right, I was wrong—and he was going to make a field day out of it.

"Well, I do now." I muttered. "Maybe he could relate to…" I gestured awkwardly to my beaten and bruised self. "This kind of thing."

I was sick of being the only me. I didn't have friends besides Dave and my mother, and neither of them understood. Dave tried to, but I still felt unbearably alone inside my own head, I admitted to myself. It was driving me insane.

Suddenly solemn, Dave nodded. "I have the means to get us there. We can go whenever you like, if you're serious about this. My dad will be fine with it. Are you going to try to convince your mother, or just leave her a cryptic note on the kitchen counter?"

Damn, he knew my evasion techniques too well. "I was planning on the latter."

He didn't even pause. "Okay, then. Your mother should be home about now, right? Do you want to pack your things tonight? I should be able to get us a flight out of here by sometime early tomorrow."

My pulse jumped. This was actually happening. I wouldn't back down. I didn't want to.

Dave must have noticed the panicked expression on my face; he came forward, gripping my hands. Up close, I noticed his eyeliner had been smudged, his hair in slight disarray where his hands had raked through it. The bottom of his shirt was rumpled in a way as to indicate that he'd spent a while crumpling it between his fingers anxiously. His palms were still sticky with residual sweat, cooled now and adhering to his skin. With a quick glance, I saw that he hadn't eaten anything either. He had been worried about me beyond what he was showing me now, and it touched some frozen part of my heart with warmth.

"Are you sure?" he whispered. "You don't have to do this."

"Yeah." I swallowed. "Yeah, I do. I need to. I can't waste my life not knowing who I come from." _Who I am._

"Okay." He nodded assuredly. "Then we'll do this. What is the worst that could happen? He turns you away, doesn't believe you? Then we say 'fuck that guy', right?"

I gave a small laugh. "Yes."

"Listen, Angelica," he suddenly turned serious, gripping my hand tightly. "Since I'm getting you into this, I won't leave your side. I'll be with you the whole way, okay? And if you want to come back home, just say the word and we'll go."

"Thank you," I said, at a loss for words other than that. In what way was I supposed to react to this? What words was I to use?

"Now, I'll drive you home. I already texted your mom from your phone. She knows you'll be home late."

I scoffed. Clever devil had my life laid out for me. And by God, I was going to follow him.


	4. Icarus

**A/N: Okay, I have been doing admittedly shitty writing here**. **Please forgive it for now. My computer's being an ass, which has not inspired me to edit very much. Please, try to enjoy!**

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It was early the next morning, and my heart was alternating between my stomach and my throat. I jaunted my way down the stairs, a semi-pleasant mixture of excitement and apprehension vining throughout my body. My mother greeted me warmly in the kitchen, only inspiring a small frisson of guilt in me. When she offered me breakfast I accepted, and when she leaned in to kiss my cheek I didn't make a distasteful expression. I considered it my apology in advance.

I nibbled at the end of a bland piece of buttered toast, making sure to sprawl myself openly across the length of my chair. No sheltered body language, no evasive movements. Not that she would notice, but it was better to be safe.

"What were you planning to do this weekend?"

I shrugged, kicking at my backpack (which was now filled with clothes, not textbooks). "Sit around, read. Maybe collect something from the pond down the street and stick it under my microscope. The usual."

I'd already emailed all of my teachers and guidance counselors; according to them, I was out of state on case of family emergency. I didn't particularly care if they believed it or not. I would be gone and on my way to London by noon. If I was gone too long, I would set up an, e-school account, and continue on from there.

"Well, maybe if you get bored of that, we can go see that movie you've been raving about. About the child prodigy or whatever it was?"

Something tugged unexpectedly in my gut. Guilt? Shame? Sadness?

"It's a film based on theories of what Mozart's early life may have been like."

"Yes, that was it. Perhaps we'll go see it. Check the show times when you get a chance."

"Okay."

Shortly after that, my mother received an irate phone call from her coworker. She worked as a low level nurse at the local emergency room, answering phones and filling out forms at a desk all day—not the most adrenaline inducing of jobs. If I were going to go for a medical position, I would never settle for nurse; I would have to be a surgeon or paramedic—something fast paced enough to get the blood pumping. Nonetheless, I was proud of her; in a way. At least she wasn't dull enough to live her life as a secretary or some other such time-wasting existence.

As she gathered her bags and readied to leave the house, she approached my chair, cupping my injured cheek in her palm. "Please do consider staying home today, resting. I am a certified nurse, you know, and I know when the body needs time to heal."

I had informed her last night of the predicament after school (leaving out some of the details)—to which she'd tutted and glared, waxing poetic about my rebellious tendencies to frequently get into brawls and skirmishes. I'd told her that Dave had found me and taken me to the emergency room—we must've just missed her shift—and that I'd checked out fine, with some extra gauze and a warning to be careful until my wounds healed. None of this was true, of course, but I had it all covered. I'd properly wrapped my hand last night, and found that it wasn't as bad as it had seemed. Once the swelling had gone down it turned out to be more of a severe sprain, with maybe a few hairline fractures. It would heal properly, if not as quickly as I might wish.

Once my mother had left, I jumped from my chair, discarding the soggy toast into the trashcan and bounding as swiftly as I dared up the stairs. I packed even more of my belongings—my favorite shirts, many pairs of sweatpants, and a number of valuable old tomes which I'd collected over the years. In with them were a few miscellaneous medical and scientific texts which usually tended to hold my attention for a good hour or so.

At this point, as I counted and recounted—making sure, most importantly, that I had all of my electronic devices and their chargers securely packed away—I stood at the edge of my bed, hands on my hips, waiting. I tugged my phone from my pocket and debated calling Dave, to ask him if he'd decided to cop out. Seeing that it was a full hour before he was supposed to pick me up, I debated against it, instead sending him a text which simply informed him that I was growing impatient, and was ready whenever he decided to get a move on.

Though there was one other thing I had yet to do. Sighing to myself, I sat gingerly in my battered office chair, and gently tugged it toward the small desk which occupied a corner of my room. I felt suddenly tentative, sentimental, as if the objects already ceased to belong to me. I pulled a pad of yellow paper from the drawer to my right, and picked up my second favorite pen (the first was already stowed safely in my luggage). As I applied the inked tip to the paper, I realized I had no idea (well, some idea) what to write.

 _Hello Mom_ , I wrote, and then immediately scratched it out.

 _Goodbye Mom_ , I tried—and scratched that out as well. I grunted in frustration. Why was this difficult? It should be straightforward. I needed only to tell her what I was doing, and assure her that I would be safe and sound, and that she need not ever to worry. Maybe—

There was a muffled thump somewhere to my left, and before I could turn, there was a soft tail trailing inconsiderately between my lips. I sputtered lightly, sticking out my tongue to remove bits of fur from my mouth. Icarus, gray-and-black tabby and arguably my most valued of confidants, turned playfully onto his back and stuck all four feet into the air, as if to challenge my ability to control him.

"Yes, hello," I murmured, reveling slightly in the fact that the cat allowed me to stroke his belly without any qualms. "Any valuable input?"

Icarus blinked baleful green eyes at me, before standing and relocating from the desk to my lap. The subtle vibrations of his purring soothed me as I ripped the page from the pad and tossed it into the trash bin under my desk. I took a deep breath, left hand caressing inconceivably soft fur, and began once more.

 _Mom_ , I wrote, simply.

 _Let me begin by saying something: I love you. The next thing is that I want you to trust that I can take care of myself. I won't try to pull the 'almost an adult' card, because we've had that conversation. I am leaving. Not for good, obviously, and not because of anything you did. Well, a little bit; I'm going to find Sherlock Holmes. I've already got his address, so I don't want you imagining me roaming helpless and lost around the streets of London. I didn't take any money out of the account; Dave is accompanying me, and you know the connections his dad has. He has all travel expenses covered, plus some. I hope this makes you feel a bit better. I know you're going to be too angry to see straight after you've read this, but I hope you can at least understand my side of this. Sherlock Holmes, my father, is an important person for me, and I know you think that I'd be miserable with him—but I've always resented that you never even tried to put me in contact with him. You're always telling me how similar I am to him—why would you keep me away from the only person that might be able to relate to me? You know how much I've always struggled with that, since I was a child. Even if this trip ends with my father slamming the door in my face, I hope you see that I have to at least attempt this._

 _Again, I love you. I'll make sure to call you as soon as I can so that you know I'm safe. In the meantime, Dave will be updating his dad regularly. You can ask him if you become worried._

 _Your Daughter,_

 _Angelica Sage Ryder_

My hand twitched over the page. I read the letter back at least five times to myself, and in some act of sentiment I refused to acknowledge properly, my fingers itched to tack the name Holmes onto the end of my signature.

Approximately forty-five minutes later, note firmly attached to the fridge with a magnet, Dave's car rumbled to a stop in front my house. I let Dave do the majority of the heavy-lifting, since the whole thing had been his idea after all. We settled into the front seat, and as the car sputtered to life and began moving, Icarus popped up from the oversized purse in my lap. He sent a glare in Dave's direction, as he always did, and then mewled pathetically at me; as if to ask why Dave had to come along. I found this hilarious but Dave, apparently, did not. He scowled back at the cat and turned similarly pleading eyes on me. "Did you have to bring him? I'm sure your mom wouldn't toss him out on the streets."

"Oh, she might," I said, scratching soothingly behind Icarus's ears. "They can't tolerate each other. Icarus doesn't tolerate many people. I'm surprised he even likes me, actually."

Dave scoffed, shaking his head. "It's because you two have some sort of freak psychic connection." He said, making a disgusted face as Icarus's head fell trustingly slack in my palm, his purrs loud enough to be heard over the radio.

I thought it was less of a psychic connection, and more owed to the fact that I'd practically raised him from kitten age. He was to this day the only feline I'd known to be stupid enough to fall ill to heat stroke instead of taking shade; hence his namesake. Seven summers previous had found an already reclusive girl lured from the confines of her air-conditioned home by the sound of pathetic, distanced meows. I'd found a too-small mound of dark fur behind an alley dumpster, its only nutrition seeming to have been whatever it could scavenge from the trash.

I'd taken the thing home, and with the help of my mother (who had helped me diagnose his heat stroke, among many other ailments) patched him up enough with home-facilitated IV fluids and warm towels to keep his body temperature regular. Though it had been touch and go, he had survived. Though during his treatment, and to this day, Icarus was loathe to let anybody other than myself touch him for any length of time.

"You love him, and you know it." I protest to Dave, who makes a noncommittal sound and keeps driving.

As we board the plane, Icarus hisses and growls at the movement of the bag. I shush him patiently, and ignore Dave's bugging eyes.

"I still don't know how you managed that," Dave mutters crossly in the seat next to me. I procure the orange cat-sized vest from my jacket pocket, smirking.

"Therapy cat," I say. "Paperwork for it checked out fine."

"Oh my fucking God," I hear him whisper, and have to suppress laughter as the pilot tells us over the intercom to put on our seatbelts.

/

A/N: D **on't worry, this is a double update! Next chapter features the meeting, from John's point of view. Please review!**


	5. The State of Living

**A/N: IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, GO BACK A CHAPTER AND READ IT FIRST-THIS IS A DOUBLE CHAPTER POST. Longer chapter with marginally better writing than the last multiple chapters. Please, please let me know your thoughts, and feel free to let me know your ideas for this story, correct me on typos, etc.**

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 _When you walk with Sherlock Holmes_ , Mycroft had once told him, _you see the battlefield_. And while this statement was certainly not untrue, John reflected, that battlefield—over the last year or so—had morphed into something more surreally sinister. A cat and mouse game with traps which seemed to snap closed with the deadliness of a whisper, rather than the jarring sounds of war which had so livened him to begin with. Moriarty was incomparable in the face of the regular, slap-dash criminals he and Sherlock were so accustomed to dealing with—he was an arachnid lavishly spinning spools of silky web around their ankles, waiting until the last moment to deal them in with his bite.

 _"Westwood,"_ John recalled him proclaiming earlier that night, shadows moving across the blue of the pool's water and darkening the line of his shrewd eyes. After everything else that Moriarty had said, that one word had been the thing to turn John's stomach the most. He was casual, and calculated, and didn't seem to give a toss for his own life. As long as he had those around him quaking with some sort of fearful respect of his power, Moriarty could leave the world with peace in his heart if someone so decided to tug him along into death with them. But John couldn't honestly proclaim injustice on his own part—he glanced wryly down at his steady left hand—because as Mycroft had also pointed out that fateful night, he seemed to thrive off of danger in a way that was not wholly decent of him.

Sherlock in the cab's seat beside him was not quite as calm yet, his steepled fingers twitching with nerves under his chin. John knew better than to speak before they'd entered the safety of the flat—and even then, Sherlock could hide away in his mind to go over the events of the evening before John had a chance to so much as persuade some sort of food into his mouth. When the taxi stopped in front of 221B, though, Sherlock stayed stoically in his position, eyes unfocused and staring ahead of him.

John held up a finger to the confused cabby and cleared his throat. Almost startlingly quickly, Sherlock drew in a breath and whipped his entire upper body around to face John, asking in a nearly indecipherable rush, "What? Are you alright?"

Something twanged like the broken string of a violin in John's chest at the frantic concern in Sherlock's gaze—he must have been very far immersed in memories of the traumatic night, indeed—but he only nodded toward the door to the flat with a slight raise of his eyebrows. "Fine," he murmured as an afterthought.

Without another syllable, Sherlock climbed from the cab's backseat, tossing his wallet haphazardly behind him at John to pay the fare. It was some sort of thanks—other than his previous "that, uh thing you did—offered to do—it was…good"—of John's willingness to give his life for the chance that Sherlock himself would be able to get away. No thanks were needed at all, though he thought it was nice to not have to pay for the cab himself this time. John Watson would do it again in less than a heartbeat.

Sherlock paused by the door, staring at it perplexedly for just a second before addressing John over his shoulder. "My brother is here," he grumbled, muttering something about doorknockers as he and John made their way up the steps to their flat. It was all good and well that Mycroft be informed of the night's happenings, John thought begrudgingly. The British Government had always seemed a quieter brilliance than Sherlock's peacock-like parading, though he also brandished a stick up his arse which John bristled at, and which his younger brother thankfully lacked.

When the door to 221B swung open, though, it was not Mycroft Holmes that sat waiting for them.

Shockingly enough, there sat a girl—dark, curling hair, light eyes which John could not tell the exact color of due to the scarce lighting—in John's chair. A boy of around the same age—seventeen, eighteen? —stood just behind the chair, the recently lit grate behind them throwing their faces into eerie shadow. A cat, of all ridiculous things, sat easily upon the girl's lap, her heavily bandaged hand stroking its fur in repeated motions.

"Hey," she said, unmoving. "Finally." American.

"A client?" John muttered to himself. No, it was nearly past eleven o'clock at night. But if not a client, then who?

"Look, um." He cleared his throat, approaching the kids, who hadn't said a word besides the girl's monosyllabic greeting. "We'd be happy to review your case in the morning but—"

"They aren't here to give us a case." Sherlock announced quite confidently. Broken from his previously contemplative state, he strode forward, pointing to the suitcases taking up the space around their feet which John had somehow failed to notice in his tiredness and general confusion over their presence.

"You," he addressed the coolly casual girl. "American, based on the accent and the brand of your luggage. Lower-middle class based on the tattered state of it—fraying around the edges, staining here and there—but overall kept in workable shape. Only set of luggage you have, no money to spend on luxuries. Clothing; not without taste but made with cheap materials—polyester, rayon, et cetera. But the cuts are conscientious and the clothes, though obviously not new, are well taken care of—centered on how others see you but also on a certain level of professionalism; commendable for someone your age."

Seeming finished with the girl, Sherlock's eyes focused in on the boy standing stiffly behind her. John stayed silent, waiting out Sherlock's deductions with a well-developed patience.

"You, on the other hand…" Sherlock rumbled slowly, taking his time as he circled the boy with elegant movements. Despite himself, John's mind called up an image of Moriarty's detached predatory smile, and he had to remind himself that Sherlock was merely speaking of clothing and luggage, rather than death and world domination. "You are quite the opposite. The majority of your preferred clothing would suggest you come from a rather similar monetary background—years old t-shirt, ripped jeans which weren't bought that way, drugstore quality eyeliner." This last was said with an inkling of amusement. John hadn't even noticed the kid was wearing eyeliner.

"But your coat," Sherlock smiled. "Your coat—made of 100% wool—suggests that you dress this dismal way on purpose. The coat isn't your usual style, but was in fact a gift from your father; the style is after all not one a modern young man would pick for himself. Your luggage is also of much higher quality—and newer—than your companion's. Definitely higher income. I'm thinking he has a rather high-up position in…politics—no, government! Ah, I can relate. You two have been on the outs—also, I can relate—but not enough so that he would refuse to fund your sudden—yes, sudden; you haven't yet set your watch to the correct time—trip to England. The ticket stubs in your pocket suggest you arrived in London this afternoon."

"So," Sherlock concluded, stepping back and folding gracefully into his own chair. His hands took up position again under his chin, and he gave a content smile. "It seems—quite wrongly, I'm afraid—that you two believe you will be staying here, due to the presence of your luggage and the late hour. But why? Who _are_ you?"

John shifted in place before sighing and moving to grab the uncomfortably hard-backed chair which was usually reserved for clients. He'd had a rather rough day, and all he wanted was to settle into his chair and discuss the evening with Sherlock, his Union Jack pillow a constant comfort in the way it flattened between his back and the arm of the chair. Rude as the thought may have been, he had the urge to tip the girl and her surly looking cat from _his_ chair, and do just that. He placed the wooden chair relatively close to Sherlock's, and subtly glared back at the cat on the girl's lap. It blinked its eyes in contentment and turned its head into the girl's palm, unaffected.

The boy's hand landed casually on the girl's shoulder—silent support. Why? John glanced over, confirming that, of course, Sherlock had noticed it as well. For all her straight-backed posture and cheeky greetings, the girl seemed to steel herself under Sherlock's intent gaze. Now that John was seated directly across from her, the light of the fire illuminated her bruised face, and he could see that her eyes were a shockingly pale blue. Something about their color, and the set and structure of her facial bones nagged the word ( _"obvious!"_ ) to his logical mind. He shook the thought away, its insistency annoying.

The girl took a deep breath, and with a shaky hand moved a stray curl from her face—shaking hand; scared. John thought that perhaps he was getting better at this. She fidgeted a bit more before speaking, her mouth shaping different words and sounds before she decided on a safe way to phrase her words.

"Well, um," she murmured. "I don't know if it's my identity you'd be interested in, per se." Her voice was low and had a certain flowing quality, even with her nervousness. Not the clipped, abrasive American accent that England often made fun with, but something gentler.

"But more—but more my mother's." Here, she drew in a stuttering breath, and the boy's hand readjusted itself on her shoulder. John had frozen; there was _something,_ something that was so blindingly obvious that he was missing.

Sherlock did not seem to be suffering from such thoughts. He lazily waved his hand in her direction, and John could almost hear his eyes rolling. "And your mother is…?"

"Ellen Melinda Ryder." She said in a rush, as if ripping off a plaster. "You would've met her at King's College. She's American—obviously she didn't attend there—but she visited a friend there often. You were young, and intoxicated that night, I presume—on what? Could be any number of things based on your obvious superior intelligence and erratic behavior; foot twitching incessantly, fingers tapping no discernable rhythm even though you seem to have come from some sort of exerting activity—perfect breeding grounds for a drug user, really." She took what may have amounted to half of a deep breath before continuing, and John with his comparably dull mind knew who she was before she'd said it.

"You two had your intoxicated rendezvous about…" here she glanced at the silent sentry behind her chair. "Oh, I'd say seventeen years ago. Have you deduced my point, Sherlock Holmes?"

The girl—Sherlock's…his

Was she having a laugh? Bloody hell. No way.

Her tone was an odd array of amused, stiff, and terrified. The familiar air surrounding her suddenly locked into place with startling clarity, and John found himself nearly chortling insanely at the unlikeliness of it all. He leaned forward, clutching briefly at an ache that had begun on the bridge of his nose. "Are you saying that you're? That you're _Sherlock's_ …?"

John glanced at the man beside him, whose aforementioned movements had halted completely. Sherlock sat still in his chair, eyes wide as they focused on the girl, seeming to take in every detail, make every deduction which he hadn't before. The room had gone silent but for the crackling of the flames in the hearth and the faintly heard purring of the cat on her lap.

Seeming more confident—though not relaxed—the girl heaved a great dramatic sigh which could have stood in place of a paternity test in John's opinion. "His daughter? Yes, it would seem so. I'd love to have a paternity test done, of course, but…"

Still the room remained silent, and Sherlock remained inanimate. The only clue that told John he hadn't morphed into some sort of shocked wax figure was the occasional flinch of his eyelids against his vacant blue eyes.

John springs into action, leaping to his feet and offering the girl his hand. "Yes, God, of course. Doctor John Watson. Um…what's…what is your name?" Realizing that he was maybe more jostling the poor thing's hand instead of shaking it, he moves onto the boy.

"David Wright," The boy—David—introduces himself, the hard lines of his young face finally cracking into something resembling a pleasant smile. "And this is—"

"Angelica Sage Ryder." Sherlock's daughter supplies. "Though I'm not very fond of the first name, myself. You could just call me Sage, if you'd like."

"Right, yes, David and Sage, of course…" John feels the awkward grin which had crept onto his features, and finds himself unable to do or say much else. He glances over his shoulder and finds Sherlock still quite catatonic. Right, then. "Sherlock?" He ventures, and there is no response.

"The landlady let us in, said something about an herbal soother…?" David offers conversationally. Sage has apparently taken up the act of having a staring contest with Sherlock.

"Yeah, she's…got a hip." John concedes distractedly. With one more glance in his flatmate's direction, John decides Sherlock isn't going to be of any further use this evening. Perhaps he'd finally ruptured something in that great big brain of his.

"Look, don't mind him, he gets like this sometimes. You two can stay here if you'd like. You can have my room tonight, and we'll figure something else out in the morning." He says, and then wonders if it's a bad adult decision to stick two opposite sex teenagers in a bed together. He remedies himself quickly with the thought that he, surprisingly, isn't the parent in this situation, and that the two seem trustworthy enough not to produce a baby by the morning.

"David's dad has said that he'll pay for a hotel, but—"

"Nonsense," John says, shooing them towards the staircase. "Mrs. Hudson will probably be bringing tea up with some breakfast in the morning, we wouldn't want to miss that," he jokes. John gives pause near the bottom steps of the staircase, the two teenagers and cat ahead of him.

"That is, if you drink…tea?" The question holds more bafflement than John thinks it should. He hasn't met many people that don't enjoy a nice spot of tea in the morning.

"Well, actually," Sage begins, but before she is able to finish her sentence David delivers a completely unsubtle kick to the back of one of her ankles. Quickly as she draws in a breath, Sage's expression transforms into an innocent, tight-lipped smile that is so familiar John feels as if he's watching two younger versions of himself and Sherlock at play. "Tea would be lovely, thank you, Dr. Watson. Goodnight."

They hurry up the rest of the steps, Sage's cat—whom he wasn't introduced to, John has as an afterthought—bouncing disinterestedly over her shoulder where it had been slung like a limbless thing. "Second door on the left!" John calls after them.

John collapses against the wall as soon as they're out of sight, feeling the strange urge to both laugh and cry simultaneously. Holy hell, what a night. Moriarty, being strapped to multiple explosives and threatened, and now, there were two teenagers (one of which was Sherlock's own doing) in John's bedroom. John's sure he'll never stop being gobsmacked by the revelation that Sherlock had…that he did that kind of…

Still shaking his head, John emerges into the sitting room. "Sherlock, what the hell is going—?"

John cuts himself off, because Sherlock's chair is empty. Glancing towards the door, John finds that the Belstaff and scarf are vacant as well. John grits his teeth, wants to go after him in protest that it's too dangerous for him to be out alone tonight, after everything that had just gone down.

But he's so tired that he just plops into his chair. He pulls his phone from his pocket intending to tell Sherlock to be home within the next few hours, but it's gone dead. Not even bothering to go plug it in, John falls into a fitful sleep next to the fire.

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 **Please review!**


	6. Expect The Unexpected

**AN: Bit of a long one, I hope you guys like it. Leave me reviews!**

Sherlock Holmes paced the dimmed streets of London, for once not having much of a destination in mind. Was this a thing normal people did; wandered aimlessly, inanely expecting to stumble upon an answer to a jumbled question? Eventually his legs carried him to a bench in a park he couldn't be bothered to know the name of, and he sat with an outward numbness which mirrored his strangely halted thoughts. _Maybe this is that shock thing people are always worried about_ , Sherlock thought. _Where in hell are those ridiculous blankets when you need them?_

He vaguely remembered her, the girl he'd met at University when he'd been stumbling through a frenzied fog of cocaine, morphine, pain killers—and whatever else he'd been utilizing to escape from his own mind at the time. She'd only been in town for a night, and had been intelligent enough to carry on a conversation with, and so they'd ended up in his dorm where she'd cleverly introduced sex to him as an experiment to replicate for himself. She'd goaded him with her inebriated logic, and he'd wondered if sex could be an alternate distraction—after all, sex was known to release endorphins related to elation and high energy, so he thought it would be worth a try if it would pull him away from the drugs. Maybe then Mycroft would be appeased and stop tracking his every movement.

At the end of the encounter, Sherlock had found that while the sex had not been unenjoyable, it still couldn't compare to a seven percent solution of his own making—he'd deleted the encounter without thought. The next year, he'd found a different significance in the act with his notably less female roommate. Sherlock quickly shied away from the memories.

And anyway, now—now, Sherlock had a daughter. A nearly fully grown daughter who'd formed from some inconsequential night in his past. Sherlock didn't know how to feel—he tried to avoid feelings to begin with, which made him feel now as if he were swimming in deep, murky waters, never able to reach the surface nor the bottom. Gritting his teeth, he fished his phone from the deep pocket of his Belstaff, and punched the call button. The line rang only twice before his brother's irritating voice languished over the speaker.

 _"Brother mine, I hear Doctor Watson and yourself found yourselves in a predicament earlier tonight—care to share the details?"_ He sounded as if he were smiling smugly, though to be fair Mycroft habitually used that tone. Sherlock had a working theory that it was due to a personality disorder.

"Not what I called to talk about."

 _"Yes, you do so rarely invest in actually speaking to me. Tell me, to what to I owe the pleasure?"_

Better to just be out with it. "I have just discovered, quite abruptly, that I am the father of a seventeen-year-old girl."

Mycroft was silent. "Mycroft?"

Sherlock listened. He couldn't even make out the sound of his brother's breathing. He rolled his eyes. "You, by default, are an uncle," he pointed out, at a loss for anything intelligent to say. Silence.

Then _,_ tersely _, "Are you certain?"_

"I plan to have Molly run a DNA compatibility test, but I find the…resemblance quite unmistakable." He smiled grimly to himself, wondering suddenly how his daughter would react to Mycroft.

 _"I'll send a car in the morning."_

 _Click._

"Very helpful," Sherlock muttered resentfully. He dropped his mobile into his coat pocket, glancing back the way he'd come with apprehension. He was no small amount of uncomfortable with teenagers invading his flat. 221B had always served as his safe space, where he'd been able to be himself, with just he and John at the center of it all, in their own bubble of fond bickering amid the clutter of books and body parts. Now, how would that be altered? He certainly didn't want it to be—he was at the best spot in life he'd ever been. But what choice did he actually have?

Deciding that he couldn't control this component of his life, Sherlock heaved a great resigned sigh and decided to face the bullet head on. That was the phrase, wasn't it?

A rumble of thunder sounded above, like some sort of eldritch omen enveloping him as he trudged back towards the flat.

When he arrived back at the flat—careful to avoid the fifth step from the bottom which creaked so as not to disturb Mrs. Hudson, John was slumped over in his chair with his chin to his chest, the fire in the grate waning beside him. Feeling an uncommon surge of affection toward his flatmate—best friend—Sherlock crouched next to John's sleeping figure, placing a hand on his shoulder and jostling him gently.

"John," Sherlock urged quietly, and blearily John roused, his head lifting and eyes forcing themselves open.

"Git," He grumbled immediately. "Where'd you go? Can't just up and leave after the kind of night we've had. I was worried."

Sherlock smiled at the slight slur of his words, and how his eyes were already trying to shut again. It was a wonder he hadn't collapsed much earlier, though Sherlock supposed the adrenaline had lasted him a few hours.

"Clearly," he consented dryly, straightening himself and extending an arm toward his own bedroom. "Go to bed, John. You're going to have a terrible ache by the morning if you continue to sleep in that chair."

"Can't. Two teenagers in my—"

"I meant that you could use my bed. Not like I'll be sleeping tonight, anyway."

At that, John sobered slightly. He stared skeptically up at Sherlock, a disapproving twist to his mouth. "Sherlock, you've got to be exhausted. You can't possibly refuse your body the rest it needs when—"

Feeling the stirrings of one of John's speeches, Sherlock cut him off. "If I decide to sleep, I'll use the couch. You're the one with the bad shoulder. It's settled. Now, off to bed with you."

John continued to contemplate the issue for a moment more, but finally sighed in resignation. "Fine, I'm too tired to argue. Wake me up if you need something." With that, he stretched his arms and slowly made his way on stiff limbs to Sherlock's bedroom. He left the door slightly cracked.

After John fell asleep (remarkably quickly), the flat lapsed into silence. Sherlock alternated between pacing the floor, spreading himself across the couch in various ultimately unsatisfying positions, and then, when all else failed, making cup after cup of tea. He'd attempted to sit still and think, to map out what Moriarty would do next, but his thoughts kept rerouting themselves back to the frankly unimportant factor; his daughter, his daughter, his daughter. Being able to know his daughter was all good and well, but she wasn't the solution to his alter ego serial bomber. Sherlock wished he could get his mind in order, wished he could see a solution as easily as a map of London, but his thoughts raced past his head teasingly, close enough for him to catch glimpses of, but remaining out of his grasp. Finally he surrendered, stretching himself out languidly on the couch, trying to relax his muscles.

 _Angelica_ , he thought, forming the word between his lips without uttering a sound. It didn't suit her. Just as Sherlock had never been a William, Sage was not an Angelica. He wondered if they could ever be as similar in everything else. Was Sherlock's offspring bound to be just like everyone else, wandering obliviously through life without an intelligent thought going through her head? How was he supposed to form a relationship with someone so ordinarily dull? Was she bound to be as distant from him as the rest of his family?

It was nearly thirty minutes past four in the morning when Sherlock noticed the sound of soft footfalls from the upstairs. Feminine and repeating, passing over the creak at the far end of the hall with impressive swiftness. Sherlock closed his eyes, exhaling a sigh as he stretched his legs against the arm of the couch. She was still wearing her shoes; uncomfortable, anxious for the sun to come up so that she could move about freely without disturbing someone.

In a rare act, Sherlock didn't calculate the possible outcomes as he bolted abruptly to his feet and made his way through the sitting room and upstairs, avoiding the noisy steps to affect an instinctual touch of the dramatic. Unfortunately, Sage was unsurprised, leaning against John's bedroom door and staring expectantly at him as he reached the top of the staircase. Damn.

They stood across from each other silently, neither breaking eye contact. Sherlock gave himself the excuse that he was waiting for her to make the first move, not that he didn't know what to say.

Sage directed a polite quirk of her lips somewhere to the left his head, and lifted a hand briefly to wave at him. "Good morning," she greeted.

"Why are you awake?" He asked, though he knew the answer. Sherlock wasn't in the habit of asking questions in general, let alone such obvious ones.

"You know the answer to that. Don't try to trick me." Sage chuckled, and sat back against the wall. She patted the spot next to her in invitation, and after a moment of surprised stillness, he opted to sit across from her instead, against the opposite wall.

"You don't like it here." He relinquished himself to simplicity. It would be best to stay open and elementary. He didn't want to impress her, shockingly enough. He only had an intense inquisitiveness about her. He wanted to know things about her.

"It isn't that I don't like it, necessarily," she countered. "But I'm in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Anyone would be unable to relax."

Sherlock looked pointedly at John's closed bedroom door. He opened his mouth, but Sage had already seen his question.

"David's different. He's used to sleeping in unfamiliar places. His dad sometimes took him on business trips when he was younger. He wanted to stay awake with me, but I told him to sleep. He hasn't slept in far longer than he's used to." Her voice was quiet, slow. She was not anxious about his presence, not in the way he would have expected from the sound of her earlier restless pacing.

"He knew you wouldn't sleep?" Sherlock inquired. They must have known each other their entire lives to spontaneously decide to travel to a different country together.

"Well, I don't sleep much. It's not insomnia," she added hastily, as if she'd argued that point a few times before. "I just don't seem to need very much of it. My mother hated me as a child."

They're both silent for a moment. Sherlock is listening to the stutter and pull of the pipes in the flat next door when an alarming thought occurs to him. Even more alarming is the fact that it hadn't occurred to him sooner.

He thinks the only outward exposure of his thoughts is a slight furrow between his eyebrows. "Does your mother know where you are?"

He knows he's caught her out when she looks to the floor, reaching down to brush an invisible piece of lint from her shoe. Her mouth opened and closed aimlessly for just a moment before she regained her composure. Though she still avoided his gaze as she shrugged her slight shoulders. "Yes, she knows."

Sage is hopefully silent for a few seconds. But then, as if she can feel his unrelenting gaze, she concedes the full truth. With an exhalation of breath that's more of a growl than a sigh, she looks at him. Sherlock is surprised to find himself nearly flinching away from the unexpectedness of her luminescent blue eyes peering at him through the dark, almost unnatural. _Did his do that?_

"She knows, though I don't know if she consents. In fact, she probably doesn't. I left her a note explaining where I would be. We'd argued about me meeting you. She was adamant that I wouldn't." With a humorless smile, Sage said, "And I was adamant that I would."

Sherlock felt a spike of something in his abdomen, along with a noticeable jump in his heartrate. She'd really wanted to meet him that badly? She hadn't known a thing about him, except for what she might have read on John's blog, and yet she'd deemed him worthy of disobeying her mother and making a last minute sojourn to England? Sherlock couldn't fathom a single reason why a person would go to such extents, even to meet a long-unknown relative. And so, instead of trying to mask his confusion, he let it show openly on his face.

"Why?" he asked, a feeling deep down telling him he should know this answer as well.

Sage answered with no hesitation. "Because I wanted to know if you were like me."

Sherlock felt a gasp of breath rise and lapse in his throat. "You—"

She waited patiently for him in the stunted silence. He swallowed repeatedly when the first time didn't relieve the inexplicable lump clinging to his trachea. "Like…like me?" he finally managed, in a squeaking tenor that echoed of his younger self recoiling self-consciously from Mycroft's comments.

"I've always felt…separate from everybody. Like I'm hovering just above society, behind a barrier."

Unable to speak, Sherlock made a humming noise in encouragement for her to keep talking. He inclined his head just slightly when she met his eyes. "Have you…have you ever felt something like that?"

There was such gravity in this moment that Sherlock feared any wrong footing would make the floor beneath him splinter into pieces. "Yes," he nodded his head mechanically, up and down. A somewhat strangled sounding chuckle followed soon after. "Yes, I certainly have felt that way. For a very long time."

Sherlock pulled with his teeth at the bits of loose skin on his bottom lip. Sage was silent, and he wondered what he would deduce from her expression if he looked up. Just as he lifted his eyes, a peal of laughter breached the silence, uneven and changing clumsily between pitches. When he met his daughter's eyes, the skin around them bloomed outward in wrinkles and lines, her mouth grinning wide to meet them on her cheeks. And before he knew it he was laughing along with her, their ridiculous outburst easily loud enough to wake both other occupants of the flat.

Giggles dying down into chuckles, Sherlock shushed them both in time between his breaths. How curious. He didn't laugh like that with nearly anybody, except for John on occasion. Perhaps the events of last night really had taken a mental toll on him.

The two were left smiling at each other, the air between them more breathable. Sherlock pulled his phone from the pocket of his dressing gown and checked the time, the blue light unpleasantly glaring in the dimness his eyes had adjusted to.

"The sun will be up in an hour or so now," he said. "Assuming neither of us are going to sleep, would you like to go downstairs for a cup of tea?"

He'd sprung up from the floor and started down the stairs before she'd even agreed, because he knew she would. He was halfway down the steps when he paused to call back over his shoulder, "Oh, and for God's sake, take your shoes off. They make an absurd amount of noise on the hardwood."

 **AN: It's been a long time, I know. Oh well. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter!**


	7. Glad You Came

**AN: Exasperated John is my favorite John. I don't know who Davy Crockett/Jones is. Mrs. Hudson is sensitive and dramatic. Mycroft is, as usual, dramatic. ;)**

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John woke to the sound of something shattering against tile, whereupon his first thought, courtesy of living with Sherlock Holmes, was this: _oh God, the eyeballs_.

But as John gathered his bearings, blinking sleep from his eyes, he assuaged himself; he'd made Sherlock toss his collection of human eyeballs into the bin last week after a one-sided shouting match as he mopped the unattended mess of shattered glass and embalming fluid from the kitchen floor. The flat still smelled something awful, and he was surprised it hadn't turned their guests away from the first sniff.

Guests. David. Sage. Sherlock's _daughter_.

John sat up, joints cracking as he adjusted himself in Sherlock's bed. He ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair as the events of the previous night washed over him. God, what a mess. Moriarty had almost killed them. He'd had bombs strapped to his chest, and a sniper's rifle trained on his best friend's forehead and it had felt like there was nothing left in their control anymore. And then it had all been over with a literal snap of two fingers. No, not over, John corrected himself. This was Moriarty's game, and he'd simply put it on pause to pick back up at his own convenience. It was important to remember that.

And oddly enough, that part of the evening wasn't even what had thrown him the most. He'd been too wiped out last night to process it, but now in the beginning light of morning, he was faced with it all over again. Sherlock Holmes had a kid. Sherlock Holmes's kid was in their flat. Sherlock had, in fact, had…sex. John hadn't thought of him that way—well no, that was a lie. He'd thought of Sherlock that way once (a few times), but he'd always quickly staved those inclinations off with the memory of that first night at Angelo's. After that conversation, John had concluded that Sherlock was…asexual? It's what all the given evidence had led to. And now, faced with the possibility that that wasn't it at all, John's world had tilted just a bit off its axis.

He heard a distinct shout from the sitting room, and deciding that he'd have to figure all of this out later, he stored the thoughts somewhere safe before hauling himself from Sherlock's very comfortable bed. Apprehensive about what he might see in the sitting room, John ducked into the loo to relieve his bladder and wash his face off with some cold water before grabbing his dressing gown from its hook and venturing out.

"No, no, no!" Sherlock bellowed. He was perched in his chair looking inexplicably like some extraordinary bird of prey, shouting impassioned abuse at the telly. A mild morning. John decided to leave it be and rounded the corner into the kitchen where Sage was crouched, looking fascinatedly at the floor.

She had her dark hair collected at the back of her head with one hand, preventing it from trailing through the mess of liquid there. "Sorry," she said, looking up at the sound of his footsteps. "I just got a bit startled. I hope the mug didn't hold any sentimental value for you. Does he normally…" she faltered just a moment, but instead of looking unsure as most people would, she looked almost…hopeful. Instead of trying to come up with a word, Sage just gestured to the floor. John peered over, and with a colorful swear rounded on Sherlock's oblivious form, still ranting from his chair. He settled for a brief glare before turning to search for the mop.

On the floor was a puddle of what smelled like tea and formaldehyde, in the middle of which floated broken pieces of blue ceramic mug, and a bloody _eyeball_. The absolute prick had apparently found somewhere more discreet to store his body parts. John could only hope to God that he wouldn't one day find a severed finger floating in his English Breakfast.

"I'm so sorry," he said to Sage, who still hovered near the puddle, wringing her hands just slightly. The poor thing had no idea what a lunatic her father was. He kept speaking as he rummaged around behind the fridge. He hid most cleaning supplies there so Sherlock was less likely to find and ruin them. "Sherlock is a scientist at heart, and there's a pathologist we know who sometimes lets him sneak body parts out of the morgue for his experiments. I know it all seems quite gruesome, but…"

He turned, mop and bucket in hand, to find her holding the eyeball between her thumb and forefinger, examining it with squinted eyes. She grinned at him, deaf to his fervent apologies. She brandished the eyeball at him, unfazed—delighted, even. "Did he blow-torch this?"

"I'm—I'm not sure." He heard alarm bells going off in his head. No, they were more like panic sirens. _Two of them._ Two of them in the same house. God help him.

She swept off into the sitting room with the eyeball without another word, and John watched as she approached Sherlock's perched form. Sherlock's attention immediately transferred from the television to his daughter, and they launched into some fast-paced discussion about extreme heat applied to the optic nerve. John wasn't sure what to feel, but as he watched Sherlock radiate interest and warmth toward this unexpected development, watched the lines collect in the corners of his eyes as he smiled, a delicate fissure of happiness wound its way around John's heart. He forced himself to look away, focusing back on filling the mop bucket with hot water and a portion of his supply of industrial grade bleach.

A moment later, Sage abandoned her position at Sherlock's side, conversation apparently postponed, to help John clean up the mess. That was certainly a first for a Holmes. Or at least for a Holmes that wasn't in trouble; Sherlock had turned the kitchen spotless in record time before, after he'd blown up an appliance or accidentally destroyed one of John's possessions. As for Mycroft, he didn't count. John had never been to Mycroft's home before, but he had always assumed it was clean and tidy—but in the way a hospital room was. Sterile, bare. John much preferred the clutter of 221B to anything like that.

And having help cleaning up for once was great—John was just a bit concerned with where the hell she'd made the cauterized eyeball disappear to, and what further things she planned to inflict on it.

They were just finishing up when a pair of footsteps clunked down the stairs, and David, hair askew and clothes rumpled irredeemably appeared in the kitchen, squinting at the sudden onslaught of light and noise. Sherlock chose that moment to unfold himself from his chair and transfer himself to a casually not-casual position leaning against the kitchen's door frame. Instead of a bird of prey, John thought, Sherlock now looked more like a wary cat, glaring down from somewhere up high, tail swishing testily. Sherlock had always seemed to John more animal than human at any given time.

"And Davy Crockett has risen from his locker beneath the sea!" Sage announced melodramatically, laughing at her own joke. John's eyebrows furrowed.

"Who?" Sherlock asked, in the flabbergasted tone he managed when speaking of anything other than science, even if he knew better. He'd once pretended for an entire week that he didn't know who Winston Churchill was, and it had driven John up the wall.

"Oh, I don't know. Some old myth about a pirate, or a ghost, or the…devil. Something like that."

"I don't think that's quite right." John commented, tentatively.

"No, it isn't." David confirmed, seemingly unafraid and rolling his eyes.

Sage tilted her head at him. "But I thought that 'locker' was a euphemism for the bottom of the ocean."

"What? Well, yeah, it is but you're missing the point. Davy Jones and Davy Crockett are two entirely different concepts."

"Whatever," Sage said offhandedly, just as a knock sounded at the door. She was flushed a bit, as if embarrassed at being wrong about something. "That's one too many Davys for me to care about."

"Woo hoo!" Mrs. Hudson announced her presence, carrying a large tray displaying one of her intricately painted tea sets. John rushed to take it from her, setting it safely on the only cleared spot of the kitchen table.

"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Hudson intoned, wiping her hands down the front of her apron and blinking at Sage and David, nonplussed. She cocked her head, lips parting in question. That was right; she'd let them in last night, and Mrs. Hudson was too smart to still believe they were just clients.

"Oh, uh…" John uttered stupidly, looking to Sherlock for assistance. Since they hadn't even had a paternity test done, John wasn't sure if Sherlock—or Sage, for that matter—really wanted the news out there. But Sherlock surprised him. Instead of making up an elaborate lie or shooing Mrs. Hudson out the door before she could ask, Sherlock stepped forward and laid a large hand gently between Sage's shoulder blades, and cleared his throat in his awkwardly genuine way.

"Mrs. Hudson, I realize that this announcement is a _bit_ behind schedule, but nevertheless I am pleased to introduce you to my daughter Angelica Sage, who does just prefer to be called 'Sage'."

" _Daughter?!"_ Mrs. Hudson exclaimed, rushing forward in a fashion John hadn't thought her capable of, and enveloping Sage's face gently between her hands. "My, she _does_ look like you," her voice was near bursting with wonderment. Sage, looking scandalized, seemed to resign herself to Mrs. Hudson's affections, smiling politely if a bit uncomfortably.

Mrs. Hudson soon stopped gushing, dropping her hands from Sage's cheeks and crossing them across her blouse-clad chest. She pursed her lips, shoe tapping against the tile as she glared at Sherlock, like a mother waiting for an explanation. Which, in fairness, was exactly what she was.

All was silent. John wanted to move forward and pour himself a cup of tea, but was honestly a bit wary of stepping in Mrs. Hudson's line of fire.

Acting as if everything was normal, Sherlock extended a hand toward David, frozen at the other end of the kitchen table. "Oh, and this is her companion…D—aniel?" He stuttered, unsure of the name even though Sage had said it not two minutes prior.

"Actually, it's David. Or Dave, if you prefer. Hello." He smiled, pushing a stubborn lock of brown hair away from his eyes.

"Nice to meet you dear," Mrs. Hudson crooned, and then turned immediately back to Sherlock.

"Sherlock Holmes, you have one minute to explain to me why you didn't introduce this child to me sooner!" And then her face crumpled, one of the worst sights John had ever seen. "If after all these years, you still don't trust me…"

"No, no, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock admonished gently. He came forward and held her by the shoulders. She sniveled quietly. Mrs. Hudson was able to bring out a fierce protective instinct in Sherlock which John was constantly amazed by, and only sometimes irrationally envious of. "It's nothing like that. I only met her myself last night. No need to be so upset. I'm sure we'll all have a wonderful time together."

He was beginning to falter, rubbing his thumbs soothingly over her shoulders in absence of any other solution, and when Sage approached offering a tissue, Sherlock pounced. "Isn't that right, Sage?"

"Oh, um, yes. Yeah. A wonderful time." It really was hilarious to watch them get all flustered. It had been funny when it was just Sherlock, but Sage didn't seem all too better off.  
John shared a raised eyebrow with David. Mrs. Hudson soon returned downstairs— "to get more cups"—she'd said, evidently untrusting of theirs, and no sooner had she made her way down the stairs than another set of footsteps ascended them.

Hearing the _thunk-thunk-clack_ rhythm of dress shoes and the tip of an umbrella, John groaned internally, having only just sat down with his toast. But of course Mycroft already bloody knew.

David and Sage had gone—David in the bathroom, and Sage upstairs—to change into something presentable, and Sherlock was sitting across from him, searching idly through his email for a case. Mycroft paused in the doorway, silent.

"Well, don't just stand there," Sherlock snapped. "You look like that…tall thing in a suit—John, the thing you showed me?"

"Slenderman," John supplied, not looking up from his plate.

"Yes, that. It's disconcerting. Sit, or get out."

"I've no idea what any of that meant." Mycroft lifted a pale eyebrow, clasping his hands together atop his umbrella. He stayed standing, unrepentantly. "Now, down to business…" he cleared his throat, seeming in a rare show of humanism, fairly rattled. "Where is she?"

"Where is who?" Sherlock taunted, taciturn.

As easily as Mycroft's face had settled into its mask of general indifference, his lips puckered in detestation, and a hand dropped unconsciously to ball into a fist at his side. "Sherlock, now is _not_ the time for your foolish little _games_ —" his voice came out as a sharp hiss.

John sighed, hoping he wouldn't have to break up a fight.

"Boys," he warned, just as Sherlock opened his mouth to respond.

Sherlock's mouth slowly but surely fell closed again. He shrugged one bony shoulder. "She's getting dressed, give her a moment," he answered tersely, click-clacking away at his keyboard. John wasn't even sure he was typing anything but gibberish.

Mycroft fell silent again. As John was scrubbing his dish clean in the kitchen sink, the door to the bathroom opened, and David emerged. Seeing him freshly made-up, John saw what he hadn't the night before; the kid was a true goth. Or no, maybe he had more of a punk-ish look to him. He wore a simple black t-shirt and jeans, eye-liner freshly applied and prominent. A surprisingly subtle choker band was around his neck, a large black stud of an earring pierced through the lobe of one ear. His hair had been spiked into a level of disarray that couldn't even be called fashionable.

David gave him an awkward tight-lipped smile and clunked into the living room on his heavy, silver studded boots.

John put the kettle on to boil, since Mrs. Hudson had not yet returned with tea, and followed behind him, retiring briefly to his chair.

"Oh, hello," Mycroft tried smiling with his teeth, and John winced internally. "I was sure Sherlock said 'daughter'."

"I did," Sherlock snapped. David looked sheepish, and took two long strides across the sitting room to sit in Sherlock's vacant chair. "This is her friend, Dan."

David gave a disbelieving look. "It's _David_ ," and after a millisecond of thought he added on a respectful "sir".

John wanted to bury his face in his hands. It was going to be just like it was with Greg.

"Don't bother," John stage-whispered. "He'll never remember it _." Or more like_ , John thought privately, _he'll never attempt to remember it._

Sage burst into the room, mismatching socks covering her feet. John saw Sherlock twitch, and had a painful flashback of Sherlock's sock index. "Hey John, Sherlock, do you happen to have any tuna? Icarus is starving."

The cat from the night before—Icarus, he assumed—wove between Sage's ankles and, seeing the sheer amount of other people in the room, darted under the couch. Damn. "Yep, kettle's just about to boil, so I'll go look for some. Tea, anybody?"

Nobody answered, and John looked up to find the three Holmes' giving each other varyingly suspicious glances.

"Um, I wouldn't mind a cup," David piped up. John gave him a thumbs-up and proceeded gratefully into the kitchen. He overheard the ensuing conversation, after its short period of silence.

"Sage, meet your uncle. Mycroft." John heard the click and snap of Sherlock's violin case. Ah. Nervous, though he didn't make it obvious. He was likely going to (over)rosin his bow, and at the most play a few anxious pizzicato notes on the instrument itself. His heart had surged with warmth when he'd first realized that going through the motions soothed Sherlock's nerves, like a ritual or a bedtime routine.

"Mycroft?" Sage laughed, before abruptly stopping herself. John poured hot water over two tea bags and left them to steep. He began scouring the cabinets, tossing an empty tin of biscuits into the garbage can. Sherlock ought to just fess up and stop leaving the ransacked remains in the cabinet for John to clean up. He would buy more, particularly because sometimes biscuits were the only things John could get him to eat in the middle of a case.

"I'm sorry, it's just…Sherlock, Mycroft; they're interesting names. Wish my mother had given me a more interesting name, honestly."

"Well, 'Sage' isn't necessarily on 2012's list of most common names," Mycroft replied carefully.

Ah. There. John reached into the very back of the cabinet, stretching forward on his toes.

"Actually, I picked that one myself," Sage chuckled. John arrived back into the sitting room just in time to catch both Sherlock and Mycroft direct identical quizzical looks her way. Sherlock's head tilted just slightly, a clump of curls sliding to the other side of his forehead.

"Here you go," John said, handing over the can of tuna. "We'll get him some real food later."

She thanked him. John handed David his cup of tea, then settled into his chair with his own to watch the show. Sage and Mycroft both remained standing, even though there was a largely available couch not three feet away from them.

Sage shrugged. "If it were up to my mother, I would still be Angelica Rose Ryder. I consistently begged to change at least my middle name for five years; eventually she gave in."

"Why did you want to change it?" Sherlock inquired.

Sage gave each man a sober look. "Because I am neither an angel nor a flower, and I knew that from the beginning."

"Then I will respect your wishes," Mycroft smiled. "Sage."

She gave an equally polite smile back. "I would greatly appreciate it."

David coughed, having burned his tongue on his tea—and sputtered a moment, face reddening alarmingly. John grinned.

"So, how do you feel about a crime scene?" Sherlock waved his cell phone in the air, directing his question loudly and pointedly in Sage's direction.

Mycroft rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "And I suppose that marks my departure."

"Yes, so lovely having you, brother dear. I'm sure you have a Prime Minister to get back to."

Mycroft's eyebrows raised, just slightly, as if remembering something vaguely important. "Actually, yes," he hummed. He turned to Sage, bowing his head. "Please inform me if there is anything you need. And I do mean nearly anything."

"I will. Thank you, um," she seemed to struggle for a moment on what to call him. "…. Mycroft."

Mycroft inclined his head once again, and descended the stairs and back out onto Baker Street. David moved to look out the window, watching as Mycroft presumably slid into a sleek black car, with tinted windows and no real distinguishable features. Sherlock bounded for his chair as soon as David had left it.

"What does he do for a living?"

"Something vaguely governmental, I think?" She glanced at Sherlock, who nodded his approval.

"Yes, yes, we'll just call him the British Government for now. He's important, apparently. But back to my question: Sage, crime scene?"

Sage's eyes lit up like little fucking Christmas trees, and David turned silently from the window, intrigued.

"Wait, wait," John halted the conversation, holding a hand palm up. "Sherlock, what kind of crime scene?"

Sherlock stood, throwing off his dressing gown, under which was a complete suit. Ridiculous man. He tossed his phone, and John's left hand shot into the air to catch it. "Lestrade just texted me. Murder!"

John's eyes swept over the text, confirming Sherlock's words. He groaned. "Sherlock."

Sherlock was already starting up a conversation with Sage, who was similarly ignoring him. Something about bodies and decomposition.

" _Sherlock._ "

"What?" Sherlock snapped, and John gave him a warning look.

"We cannot take two teenagers to a crime scene. Especially a crime scene with a murdered body on display!"

Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but Sage beat him to it. "I've dissected animals before. I don't see that much of a difference."

"Angel," David laughed (and that was an interesting nickname). "You realize animal and human bodies aren't typically considered the same."

Sage scowled at the endearment—Sherlock did as well, John noticed with amusement. "Well, _Davy_ , I don't care. I'll be fine. You could stay and lure Icarus out from under the sofa if you'd like." She stuck her tongue out at him, further conceding John's point.

"Oh no, no, no," David took a physical step away from the sofa, even though he was already on the opposite side of the room from it. "You know how much that thing hates me. He bit my arm earlier, just for waking up!"

"Then the decision is made. Let's go, before the body bloats up." Quickly, Sage nipped into the kitchen to open the can of tuna, and left it on the floor beneath the coffee table for Icarus. John resigned himself. It was Lestrade's problem now. He collected his coat from its hook, making sure he had his wallet and house keys.

Still clad in mismatched socks, Sage snagged her boots from the floor to put on in the cab. Sherlock couldn't help a victorious cry of "The game is on!" as he bounded down the stairs. Mrs. Hudson peeked her head out of her door, chastising their retreating figures because she'd "just made sandwiches for them, for goodness sake!"

And God forgive him, John couldn't help a beaming grin as they all piled like clowns to a clown car into the cab; on his way to investigate a murder with two teenagers and a madman.

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 **AN: Keep those reviews coming! I love you guys and I cherish your support and feedback dearly.** **Do forgive me for any errors, as I'm doing this beta-less and quickly.**


	8. Fine by Me

**AN: Hey, guys! I really have no excuse for the long wait, but I got a sudden burst of inspiration. So here you go!**

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"Care to introduce us?" a wry voiced Lestrade said, clearing his throat pointedly. Sherlock ran a glance over him, noting his pallid complexion and the slight darkness under his eyes. Fight with the ex-wife again; she's seeing someone new. A glance at the lack of creases in his right pocket showed that he'd recently deleted his online dating app, and not for the desired reason.

Sherlock continued walking, glancing to his side in mock-confusion. "You've met John, Lestrade. Suffering from amnesia, or just the usual stupidity?"

To his credit, Lestrade didn't even flinch, just rolled his eyes in his overly exasperated fashion. As Sherlock and co. approached him, he blocked the way, though the four of them could have evaded him easily enough. Sherlock huffed a sigh. Why couldn't people just let him do what he pleased, for once? Lestrade was the one who called Sherlock in to parse out for him what was sure to be no more than a four.

"Family of mine, here for a visit. Happy?" He went to move around Lestrade, but a hand landed warningly on his chest. He heard John sigh next to him. Sage and her friend were quiet as mice behind him. Lestrade's gaze worked worriedly over the gaping university students that had crowded around the police tape. Lucky the murder had happened in such a public place, the campus of a small university on the outskirts of the inner city.

"Sherlock, you know we can't just let random people into crime scenes, let alone two kids. It's bad enough I let you two tits in on cases all the time," he said, gesturing lamely between John and Sherlock. His gaze lingered a millisecond too long behind him, where Sage was standing at his shoulder.

The boy suddenly took in a sharp breath—Charlie? Chad?—and made a stuttering excuse while pulling out his mobile. Sherlock heard his footsteps getting further and further away as he stared down at Lestrade. He felt his face tightening in frustration. " _Let_ us in on cases? You and your abysmal team would no longer have a job if it weren't for me solving eighty percent of your cases for you!" Sherlock hissed.

"Sherlock!" John berated, stepping up closer to the argument. "Listen, Greg, I know he's a rude _twat_ when he's trying to get a point across," here he paused to bump Sherlock's arm none too gently. "But you know he has a point. If we have to we can sign them on as additional police consultants, whatever it is that'll make sure your boss stays out of it."

Always the voice of reason, Sherlock thought, calming himself. Lestrade hung his head in defeat, sighing as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He lifted the tape for them, and Sherlock noticed Lestrade pull on John's arm as he crossed under. "Just make sure everyone behaves, yeah?" he whispered, and John gave a tight smile and a nod in response. Sherlock, far ahead of Sage and John already waited impatiently as Sage stopped to shake Lestrade's hand, presumably introducing herself. Her friend was nowhere in sight.

"Sage!" he called. When she looked up, he motioned for her to hurry up, practically bouncing with how anxious he was to show her first crime scene to her. He hoped it wasn't completely, utterly obvious. She rolled her eyes, and waved to Lestrade, who stared after her looking perplexed. Mindful of her small injuries, she jogged to catch up with he and John.

There were forensics workers crowding the dorm room, crouching to take pictures of the body from all different angles. It still confounded Sherlock that people had to take pictures of everything, instead of simply being able to recall information with the total clarity that he could. The body of a young woman, probably twenty-two or twenty-three, lay on the bed in an unnatural manner, as if she had fallen backwards after a heavy blow to the head. And in fact, there was a gunshot wound just right of the center of her forehead, though he knew that wasn't the cause of her death. Not a professional then, obviously. He glanced at John, smirking slightly. He thought of the taxi driver during John's _A Study in Pink,_ and marveled silently, as he often did when something reminded him of how brilliant John was, in his own way. John smiled back at him, albeit confusedly. Then his focus shifted behind Sherlock, to the doorway. Sage stood there, looking almost sheepish to enter after Lestrade's tantrum earlier. Someone had given her a pair of latex gloves, and she wrung her hands, pinching at them unconsciously. Sherlock approached her, tentatively placing a hand on her elbow.

"Come now, would you like to give it a try?" He tried to ignore the benevolence he felt towards the girl, which he knew came across transparently in his voice. He would sort that out later. Wordlessly, Sage nodded, taking a few unsure steps toward the body. Sherlock was pleasantly surprised when she didn't so much as gasp at the gruesome sight of the dead woman, pale and rigid on the bed. Waiting on her to speak, Sherlock stayed uncharacteristically quiet. Sage stared long and hard, her gaze slowly, steadily roaming the body. It had been a moment, and yet she'd said nothing. Did she not have any guesses yet? John stepped closer to her, and lowered his head to look into her eyes with concern.

"Alright?" he murmured quietly. "You don't have to do this, be here—not if you don't want to, or it's too much. I could take you back to the flat if you'd rather."

There was a moment of pregnant silence, and Sherlock actually found himself holding his breath waiting on a response. She wouldn't back out now, would she? She had seemed so excited on the ride over, talking about all the detective shows she'd watched at home, how she had always wished to be there with them because none of them ever figured it out as quickly as she had.

Sage straightened her shoulders, shaking her head with a new confidence. "No," she said, clearly. "Thanks John, I'm fine. _Really._ " she reassured, laughing slightly when he gave her a pointedly raised eyebrow, as if to ask if she were lying.

Before John had a chance to argue, Lestrade swept into the room. "Anything yet, Sherlock?"

Without hesitation Sherlock redirected his question. "Sage?"

Her sharp eyes focused on him, startled. Her eyebrows shot into her hairline, and Sherlock knew she understood what he was asking. "What?" she said anyway.

He grunted impatiently, gesturing to the body. "What are your thoughts? I'd like to hear them." He consciously softened his voice on the last sentence, seeing the stage fright in her eyes that were so much like his. He saw that she wanted to protest, but thankfully she gave up on that before she even started. Smart girl.

She fiddled with her hands a little, but stopped as soon as she realized she was doing it. Crossing her arms across her chest instead, she cocked a hip to the side and said defiantly, "It's poison. Cyanide, to be specific."

A surge of...something washed over him. Similar to the approval he felt when John was especially cleverer than usual, but stronger. Not just approval—pride. Lestrade stepped forward indignantly, like the buffoon he was. "No way! We ruled it as a gunshot wound, a suicide. How could you possibly think it's bloody _cyanide_?"

Sage glanced to him, and Sherlock gave a nod of approval and a barely there smirk. _Don't bother with him, you're absolutely correct_ , the look said.

"Sorry, but you're wrong," she said, and Lestrade spluttered. She pointed to the gunshot wound. "It couldn't possibly be suicide by gunshot, because the shot was fired after she was dead. There isn't even much of a blood splatter. If she'd been alive and her blood were circulating, there'd be _much_ more blood." She picked up the note which lay beside the body on the bed, skimming her eyes over it quickly. "There isn't even a stray drop of blood on this, which was right next to her. Plus, the note is too short and impersonal. Anyone at this age depressed enough to commit suicide would have a pages long note, going on and on about how sad and sorry they are. Someone else wrote this in a hurry. Thought if they added a gunshot and a suicide note to the equation, nobody would go looking for a tox screen."

Sage gently set the note back in its place, shrugging. "And obviously I'm no detective inspector or anything, but I can read the clinical signs of cyanide poisoning. Cyanide suffocates from the inside out. You see how her lips are blue? It's not particularly chilly in here and there are no marks on her neck to suggest she was strangled. She hasn't been dead long enough for it to be post mortem, she's barely gotten stiff. And you see where her cheeks are extra flushed, still, after death? Oxygen cut off from the blood vessels, another sign of cyanide." Sherlock stared in awe of his daughter. Admittedly, it wasn't a difficult deduction for him at all, but for anyone else (untrained, no less) it was obviously a challenge. He glanced sidelong at John and Lestrade to see them both in similar states of shock and awe, mouths hanging open like guppies. A few stray forensics staff decked in their blue jumpsuits had stopped to listen now, too. Sage wasn't finished with her examination, and, growing more comfortable now, she knelt down, spreading apart the victim's toes and fingers meticulously inspecting the skin there, as well as the crooks of her arms. "No visible needle-marks, so it's probable that the cyanide was in something she ate. I would have the labs check the tissues lining her stomach if I were you."

Sage stepped away from the body, snapping off her gloves. "In terms of suspects, I'd look for a rival classmate. Left-handed with bad aim; the shot is slightly off-center. Probably taking a toxicology course and thinks they're a genius." She glanced around the room, taking note of the academic trophies and accolades spanning the walls and shelves, nodding in confirmation of her own words.

"They were threatened because she was smarter than them," she commented somewhat acidly, and shoved her wadded up gloves into Lestrade's chest before striding out of the room and down the hall. Sherlock felt the sudden urge to applaud, but resisted it. If there were any doubt before that she was one hundred percent his daughter, there was none now.

Sherlock cleared his throat, and Lestrade's focus shifted to him, looking dazed. In shock, he slowly lowered his hand from his chest, where he still clutched the gloves Sage had shoved at him. "What she said," Sherlock said simply, holding back a smile.

"She's brilliant!" John exclaimed, a bit delayed. "Sherlock..." he smiled brightly at him and trailed off, but the words he wanted to convey were easily relayed in his expression. His eyes were full of the same kind of pride Sherlock felt for his newly discovered family. _Of course she would be extraordinary_ , he thought, realizing that he had been worried she might turn out to be just the opposite of that, _she's a Holmes._

Sherlock's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out to glance briefly at the screen. _Ms. Hooper is waiting on your arrival. —M.H._

Sherlock blinked at his phone. He had nearly completely forgotten about the prospect of an actual paternity test, having become so unexpectedly fond of the girl already. He supposed it would have to do—better to just get it over with so Mycroft stopped pestering—but for some reason the idea of getting back the results made a thread of uneasiness run down his spine that he couldn't explain...

Sherlock came out of his thoughts with a jolt of sound and energy, people suddenly moving around the room with more purpose than they had before. Lestrade had now snapped out of his stupor and was rushing around, calling out for Anderson and berating every forensics specialist he came across. Served them right, the idiots. John and Sherlock smirked triumphantly at each other, then strode down the hallway in search of the teenagers they had come with.

A quick stop at the St. Barts lab, a very confused Molly Hopper, and a few borrowed body parts later, they had made it back to Baker Street, all four of them cramming into the tiny living space. Sage and Sherlock had ended up in kitchen together peering at some experiment or another, while John and David watched with amusement from the desk in the living room as John wrote up his latest blog-post. Better not to mention Sage just yet, he thought.

"So, um..." John looked up from the laptop, focusing on David. He was fiddling with a somewhat gaudy looking skull ring on his right hand. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you guys meet?" he gestured between John and the general direction of the kitchen where Sherlock sat completely focused and fiddling with—was than an ear?— with goggles covering most of his face. Sage had acquired a similar pair, looking absolutely fascinated with whatever gruesome thing Sherlock was doing now.

John sat back in his chair, brow furrowed. "I thought you'd read the blog?"

"No, yeah, I have—I do read it. I assume you leave stuff out, though. I don't know, I guess it's just cooler to hear it from the source." He shrugged, smiling.

"Yeah, that's true, I do, names and such. Why are you so curious about how Sherlock and I met? I would think you'd just want to hear about the crazier cases that I haven't posted."

"There are crazier ones?" He nearly squealed with delight. David's mouth hung open in excitement for a second before he controlled himself and cleared his throat, looking down soberly. John tried to push back the laughter that threatened to escape him; turned out that behind all that goth exterior, David was quite the fangirl after all. "You two just seem so different, it's hard to see how you get along so well," he continued with a shrug.

"Yeah, we're definitely quite different, I won't deny that. But come to think of it, so are you and Sage. And you two seem to get along like two peas in a pod." John smirked knowingly as David's cheeks turned red. The kid had it bad.

"When I first met Sherlock...I thought he was mad," John laughed. "No, I mean _he is mad_ , don't get me wrong. When I said I needed a flatmate, I never expected someone like him. But he knew everything about me from just a glance, you've seen how he does. At first it made me uncomfortable, and I went home and looked him up. I was sure it was all a parlor trick, had to be; but he knew things about me that an internet search wouldn't turn up. My sister, my home life, my therapist." He paused, remembering that first day at St. Barts, Mike Stamford smirking in the corner as he watched them. He remembered how sad he was then, how hopeless, and had to marvel again at how much Sherlock had turned his life around and upside down in the best way possible.

"Anyway...then Lestrade—that's the DI you met today—burst into the flat begging for help on the serial suicides. Sherlock took off in a flash, and I don't think I could have resisted going along even if he hadn't invited me. It was amazing, and by the end of the night, my limp was gone and I was laughing like I hadn't done since before I went to Afghanistan. After that case, I never questioned his intelligence again. A lot of people must think he's a fake, or a psychopath, but I'll never believe it. He's just that smart."

There was silence for a moment as John reflected on the past, a smile tugging his lips into place. When he looked up, David was smiling too, but in a different way. He looked like the Cheshire cat, grinning like that. "Interesting," was all he said, an eyebrow quirked in a disturbingly knowing way. An awkward blush flooded John's cheeks unbidden, and he practically jumped out of his chair to answer the door when he heard the bell ring downstairs.

"Client!" he yelled, Sherlock's voice echoing it from the kitchen.

They had a flood of clients that day, none of them making it further than two minutes into their explanation before Sherlock declared them, "Boring!" and showed them to the door. John couldn't be too frustrated with him though, because in between clients (or sometimes even when they were sitting right there) he would lean over towards Sage, pointing things out to her. ("She's got two cats, one grey, one white. Can you see from the pattern of fur around her ankles?") He promised to show her how to tell if someone was divorced, widowed, or cheating by the state of their left hand next time he saw an opportunity. John rolled his eyes at his flatmate's antics, and tried to ignore the strange warmth that spread in his chest every time he overhead Sherlock interacting with his daughter, (there was no doubt in John's mind that was exactly who she was) sounding happier than if he'd just been handed a locked-room mystery and a quadruple homicide. Sage listened with rapt attention, nodding and smiling and even pointing an odd thing or two out to Sherlock; he was practically glowing. David whined in protest when Sherlock kicked the three boys talking about their comic book to the curb, having been enthralled by their story.

"Oh, don't be an idiot," Sherlock snapped, making David flinch just slightly. John frowned disapprovingly, though that hardly ever did anything when Sherlock was dead-set on being a wanker. "Of course the comics aren't actually coming true! It's obviously a marketing stunt, a form of advertisement set up by the publishers. Do try to keep up." There was a distinct snarl when talking to David that wasn't present when Sherlock spoke to nearly anyone else, except maybe Mycroft on particularly irksome occasions. John couldn't deduce worth shite, but it was glaringly obvious that Sherlock had a passionate dislike of his daughter's best friend. He'd have to have a chat with him about that. Though poor David had to suffer from it, John could recognize his best friend's behavior as protectiveness for his daughter, and though that didn't excuse his rudeness, he could understand it. Wisely, David didn't respond, just glared petulantly back at him.

It was actually Sherlock who mentioned dinner first, hours later. Maybe while having Sage around, Sherlock would remember to eat more often, John thought. They ended up ordering a frankly ridiculous amount of Chinese food, and when David offered to pay half the bill, John adamantly refused it. Sherlock seemed to pout at the gesture. Opting to avoid the dining table/lab desk, they surrounded the coffee table, David and Sage leaning against each other on the floor while John and Sherlock distributed the food over the table and sat on the couch. There was idle chatter which mainly consisted of John and David holding the conversation together by threads while Sherlock rolled his eyes and muttered about how much he hated small talk. John was tempted to shove him head first into his lo mein.

Sage didn't appear to be invested in small talk either, because she was silent for the better part of the meal. In a lapse of silence, though, she cleared her throat pointedly. "I know there's something you're not telling me," she said plainly, looking between Sherlock and John expectantly. Sherlock conveniently took a large bite of lo mein into his mouth, which he hadn't touched for the last ten minutes.

"What do you mean?" John asked, knowing there were a number of things she could mean.

Sage's eyes—so startlingly similar to Sherlock's—pinned him with a glare that was even more familiar. It was the one that said, _you are astonishingly stupid and I sincerely hope you're trying at it._ He gulped.

She made a frustrated noise. "I don't know what it is—but I have a gut feeling there's something. You're not _lying_ , I can see that. Just evading. I want to know what it is you two aren't saying."

Sherlock heaved a sigh, wiping his mouth with a napkin before speaking. "I would just fib, but I know now that you'd see right through it." He smiled, but tightly. "Sage...I've got somebody after me. He's a very dangerous person, and not mentally stable in the slightest. James Moriarty. He is determined to play his so-called _games_ with me," Sherlock sounded disgusted, whereas before, John noted, that would have been mixed with intrigue. "And I am still not sure what outcome he's trying for. Plain and simple, he is not afraid to manipulate and murder people to get his way. We've seen that already..."

Sage stared at him, her jaw tight. David's gaze was focused strictly on the floor, but John saw that one of his hands had been placed over hers, comforting her. She nodded, and Sherlock looked back at her with his brow furrowed, almost seeming worried about her response. John's own hand wanted to reach out to him, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he just shifted close enough for their legs to touch, trying to give Sherlock some kind of physical reassurance.

"Okay," Sage finally said. She still looked as if she were holding something back, but still she gave Sherlock a small smile.

"Okay?" Sherlock sounded perplexed.

"Okay," she repeated. "There's a big bad villain after you; he's insane and wants to hurt you, probably kill you. So we take care of it."

She made it sound so simple. Sherlock blinked at her, perhaps shocked that anyone who wasn't already in this mess would choose to enter it just for his sake. Sherlock didn't respond for a moment too long, still blinking, in that same state of shock he'd been in the night they met her. This time, John told his inner-voice to bugger off and reached a hand out, grasping Sherlock's knee and giving it a light squeeze. "Sherlock? Alright?"

Sherlock came back to reality with an inhalation of air, as if he'd stopped breathing. Perhaps he had. He glanced down, noticing John's hand on his knee, and looked into John's eyes with such intensity that John gasped and yanked his hand away. What the hell was that?

"We?" Sherlock was saying, attention focused on Sage, though one of his hands had suddenly moved to rest on the couch beside the one John had yanked away.

Sage rolled her eyes. "Boy, you are dramatic, aren't you? Yes, _we_. I know what that paternity test is going to say. You're my father. I'm not going to leave you to die when I've just found you."

She got up from the floor, using the top of David's head as support. He rolled his eyes and pushed her hand off good-naturedly.

"Sage," Sherlock called, just as she was approaching the stairs. She turned back, raising her eyebrows at him in question. "If we have a case that involves him in any way, you two stay here. I will not have you involved in it." His voice was stern, in a way John hadn't heard before. It was commanding, but affectionate.

"We'll see about that," Sage replied sweetly, and before anyone could respond to that, she dashed up the stairs, the bedroom door closing firmly behind her.

 **AN: Thanks for reading! I hope there are still a few people around...don't forget to review, pretty please with a Sherlock on top?**


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